


Aurora Borealis

by Tethys_resort



Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: B2MEM2021, Back to Middle-Earth Month, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Character Death, Cold, Drowning, F/M, Family, Flight of the Noldor, Food, Friendship, Gen, Grinding Ice, Helcaraxë, Hope, Hopeful Ending, Major Accidents, Major Character Injury, Memories, Music, Near Death Experiences, Nightmares, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Singing, Survival, Survival Horror, Survivor Guilt, Wakes & Funerals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-05
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-18 22:13:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29864829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tethys_resort/pseuds/Tethys_resort
Summary: The Grinding Ice was miserable and dangerous.  And beautiful.  A story from the March across the Ice.For the Back to Middle Earth 2021: Day 1 "Music"The rating for this story is for themes.  Please heed the tags!
Relationships: Aredhel & Galadriel | Artanis, Aredhel & Idril Celebrindal, Ecthelion of the Fountain & Glorfindel, Elenwë/Turgon of Gondolin, Galadriel | Artanis & Glorfindel, Glorfindel & Idril Celebrindal, Glorfindel & Turgon of Gondolin, glorfindel & elenwe
Comments: 8
Kudos: 11
Collections: Back to Middle-earth Month (B2MEM) 2021





	1. Glorfindel – “There really wasn’t any pattern to who lived and who died.  Just a moment, and they were gone.”

**Author's Note:**

> I saw a prompt for an instadrabble session and thought, “Oh, I’ll do a quick warm up and write about the pretty lights!” Well…we can see how well that turned out… (semi-hysterical giggles)
> 
> Here is the link to the picture if you are interested: https://www.flickr.com/photos/biodivlibrary/50804454627/

Since the wind started the Ice had been creaking in a deep chorus of restlessness that Laurefindil could feel through the soles of his boots. Everyone was nervous, there had been a series of minor accidents over breakfast and taking down the tents. 

Hopefully, his regular report to Lord Nolofinwe would be fast and he could get back to his House and charges quickly. 

He called it his House at least. He had rather fancifully named the group given him the House of the Golden Flower. They had laughed at the very Vanya name and at Laurefindil himself, but then refused to move to another group when offered the chance. There were almost three hundred elves in the House of the Golden Flower. One of the smaller groups of the March, made of the waifs and strays of the Noldor. Three hundred elves, fourteen of which were underage. Nine of which were elflings in truth. One of the nine was an infant in arms, born just before they stepped onto the Ice. 

Three hundred elves and fifteen giant sleds of gear, clothing, tents, supplies and food. 

After Feanaro had taken the ships with his sons, followers, and all their horses, Nolofinwe had reorganized so that each Lord or Lady had a group that became their responsibility. Most were full Houses and their dependents. They had spread out across the Ice in a wide band, trying to keep close enough together to communicate, share resources and supplies. Trying to stay far apart enough to hunt effectively in the hostile terrain. 

Thousands upon thousands of elves in a march through the cold dark. 

He grinned to himself. The House of the Golden Flower was truthfully a slightly rotating group of about three hundred elves, each with an extremely vocal opinion about everything from the communal tent to the shared meals. 

This breakfast had been no different.

“I tell you, it was not a seal.” The hunter in question had raised her voice in affront. “I know what seals look like and this was all wrong.”

The other hunter had shaken his head. “Long tube, with flippers. Brown this time. Simply a new type of seal.”

“A giant, wrinkly brown tube with a cow face! Not a dog face! With teeth as long as my arm protruding from its mouth!” she had nearly shrieked. Laurefindil had considered intervening but the argument seemed good natured. He had no doubt that she had seen something very different from the seals. When he left, one of the hunting groups was planning an excursion back into that area to see if they could catch and kill one. 

A new food source would be welcome, if they were edible.

He shook his head at himself: every living creature other than themselves was now classified by edibility. 

“Did you bring the numbers?” Nolofinwe dragged his attention back into the tent set up on the sled and away from the line of walkers. 

“Yes.” He pulled out the long piece of string he was using as an experiment, fingering his way down the knots and reciting the information each stood for. “Five elves moving from Artanis’ to my House. One family, they want to try a weaving experiment with one of the families in my group.”

He moved his fingers to the next knot. “One leaving my group for Lord Ecthelion, he wants to join his new bondmate. She is a leather worker there.” Another knot, this with a loop. “One fatality, one of my hunters was lost to one of those white bears when he didn’t stick with his hunting party. We found the body but didn’t catch the bear. One missing, we think she heard the Singers because it was at a time the sky lights were especially bright.” Nolofinwe nodded as a scribe noted each person.

A coiled section. “We currently have twelve meals stored for the entire House. Hunting is good. If we need to, I can spare four to a group in need.”

“We will need them.” Nolofinwe shook his head. “The south flank is having a harder time hunting at the moment.” He looked at the cord in Laurefindil’s hands skeptically. “Is that how you are keeping the numbers?”

He looked at the cord in his hands. “Just the ones that we don’t need to have a copy for long. It’s an elfling game. To improve your memory.”

“Games…” Nolofinwe shook his head. “Well, whatever works I suppose.” Someone behind Laurefindil tittered and he mentally winced. What was so terrible about using a game if it did the job?

“Where do you want the food to go?” Laurefindil decided to move the conversation along and get back to his House. 

“Findarato.” That made sense, Findarato and Lalwende were currently the two leaders with groups at the very tail of the March. 

Laurefindil bowed farewell and left Nolofinwe’s encampment quickly. By the position of the stars he had time to make a quick stop at Turukano’s group. He had promised to show his cousin the memory game: vellum could only be scraped so many times and the ink would run out eventually. Nothing on the ice appeared to be a good substitute for vellum, although there had been experiments with seal skin. 

Turukano and Elenwë’s group was just north of Nolofinwe, right in the front rank. 

Laurefindil waved at Elenwë, carrying Itarillë on her chest as she helped pull the lead sled, and continued on to find Turukano. Itarille grinned at him and waved, she was tall enough now that her feet reached Elenwe’s knees. The elfling had probably been walking earlier but still didn’t have the stamina to keep up with the March.

Turukano was supposed to be part of the trail clearing team this time. Most groups rotated for fairness sake. Nolofinwe was quite possible the only able bodied adult of the March who did not: his time was better spent keeping the March organized. 

Laurefindil snorted. “Able bodied” indeed… He had one elf who had lost half of his leg right after they started onto the Ice. He did not pull (though he had gamely tried), but was one of his best hunters and pathfinders. 

“Determined” seemed to be enough to pull most elves through most tasks and somehow everything got done. 

“Smirking like that, people will think you have watched the sky lights too long and are getting ready to follow the Singers.” Turukano smiled. “Did you bring the cords?”

“I brought a couple of examples and a spare for you.” Laurefindil stepped off the trail and began to fish through his pockets. “This is easier if we find a place to sit down.” 

Turukano was a quick study. Besides, it wasn’t the type of knots that mattered so much as the memory game. He looked at the cat’s cradle he had managed and shook his head in mock dismay. “I don’t think this would be much use to carry in my pockets.” He laughed suddenly. “Elenwë was trying to explain but I didn’t understand. She kept going on about chanting verses and rhymes. So I thought maybe it was something sacred to the Valar.”

Laurefindil snorted, he knew what she was talking about. “Nothing that elevated. Just silly stories, history chants and teaching songs.”

“Teaching songs?”

“You know, ‘All the plants of the mountain, all the plants of the meadows’ or ‘Orome and his naked deer’?” At Turukano’s blank looked he said, “Maybe not?”

Turukano blinked. “Do I want to know about Orome’s deer?”

Laurefindil started to respond but paused as a gust of wind blew through the March, whipping ropes and raising stinging pellets of ice. 

The Ice rocked. 

Laurefindil caught a glimpse across the March, pinpricks of Feanorian lights across the darkness, as he was plunged up and then down with violence that flung everyone onto the Ice. There were shouts of alarm all across the March, echoing through the dark. He scrabbled for a handhold as the Ice went up again at an angle, tilting hard. He collided with Turukano and they slid together into the side of one of the sleds. 

Elves began to scream as the sled pitched over, crushing the pull team on that side. 

The deep moan that heralded an ice break hummed through his bones. Turukano yelled, “Brace! Hang on!” One brief breath of silence and then an explosive crunch rang through the darkness. The breaking noise continued in a series and everyone held their breath as it ran toward them.

The last explosion Laurefindil noticed (later he was sure there were more) was directly under their feet and the shockwave punched the air out of his lungs.

In slow motion the ice shattered, pieces flying up. For a brief moment Laurefindil could see the reflected stars and the sky lights in them. They were far more beautiful than the Silmarils had ever been. 

Then he hit the water.

Laurefindil gasped with the cold and coughed as his head broke the surface again. Panting in shock he dog paddled to the edge and climbed out, pulling the elf next to him out farther. 

Turukano roared, “Pull the sleds and get to the lines!” The sleds themselves floated, but the elves wearing the pull harnesses had proven to be in the most danger when the Ice cracked like this. More quietly and desperately he called, “Elenwë! Itarillë!”

One sled was all the way in the water, upside down. 

That one. That was Elenwë’s sled. 

Laurefindil ran around the broken lip of ice and with one last deep breath dove into the water. The shock of cold was just as bad, but this time he was braced and Laurefindil looked about wildly for elves wearing the harnesses. 

Rope dangled through the water and Laurefindil swam past one female who was obviously dead. By the pulped skull, she had been hit by either sled or ice. Other elves were managing to free themselves, but he didn’t see Elenwë or Itarillë. 

After a few breathless moments of eternity, under the dim shadows of the Ice itself, Laurefindil spotted Elenwë. 

She was struggling with the harness, it was caught somehow. He swam against the numbing cold and growing oxygen starvation. He would only have a few seconds to grab her and Itarillë. 

Only a few feet more to swim. 

Black spots were beginning to float in front of his eyes when Elenwë drew her belt knife and sliced deep into her side, cutting a knot of straps that was holding her in the harness and Itarillë in the carrier. Itarillë came loose in a growing cloud of blood and Elenwë dropped the knife and shoved her at Laurefindil. He clutched the elfling tightly to his chest and reached with a free hand toward Elenwë as she went limp and spun deeper, dragged farther under the Ice in the current. In his mind she said, _“Please…”_

So he turned, kicking hard to the surface as he began to fade from lack of air. 

Laurefindil cleared the ice into the break and gasped, trying to breath. He clutched Itarillë, lest she be lost. He needed to get her out of the water. He couldn’t see, but hands grabbed him hard and there was shouting around him as he was pulled out and Itarillë was yanked limp from his arms by a voice that he vaguely recognized as one of the healers. 

He lost consciousness to someone roughly yanking off his freezing clothes. And the sound of bereaved shrieks. 

The tents were up and he was bundled up in a line with several of the survivors when he woke up. 

He stared blankly at the light hanging from one of the tent beams before trying to look around. Turukano was in the next bedroll, eyes closed. Elenwë and Itarillë were out of sight. 

“Turukano was right behind you. He got Elenwë out but she didn’t make it.” Laurefindil turned his head gingerly; his neck felt as though it was working on detaching from his body. Another tear dripped down Irrise’s face. “The cracks ate ten sleds across the March. Fifty elves are dead, mostly here.”

He tried to speak and rasped, choking and coughing. He tried again. “Itarillë?”

Irrise gave him a tiny smile. “She’s in a healing sleep, just a little cold.” She pulled up the blankets around him as he began to fade away again. Her voice was distant as he slipped away again. “I’ll wake you for the funeral.”

All the bodies belonging to Turukano’s group, those that they had managed to recover, were lined up down the ice under the Feanorian lights. 

Elenwë looked peaceful, someone had laid her out with her hands folded and eyes shut. But without that essential spark of life. Turukano was gray and translucent, Fading for grief as he crouched on the Ice by her feet. Itarillë stood numbly next to him, clutching the edge of his coat and staring at her mother.

Nolofinwe knelt down next to her corpse, one hand on her chest, whispering inaudibly. He straightened, face firming and then carefully lifted her just enough to reach under her head. Her hair broke with tiny crunches as he removed her hair clip. Nolofinwe stared at it in his hand, frozen bits of hair clung. Then kissed her forehead. “Sleep well, I promise to give this to Itarillë when she is a little older.”

He turned to offer it to Turukano, but Turukano didn’t respond.

Laurefindil sat down, out of strength, as Nolofinwe stood up straight and began what had become a ritual. “Listen, and I will tell you the name of one of those who has left us for the Halls. I name Elenwë, wife of Turukano, mother of Itarillë, daughter of the House of Quiet Ducks of Valmar.” 

The next elf stood and continued the ritual for the next body, the crushed female. “This is Mirwen…”

Laurefindil lost track of the words as he stared at Turukano and Itarillë. If he shut his eyes he could visualize Elenwë in his parent’s garden, laughing with his elder sister. They had eagerly planned excursions together, visiting the areas beyond the Light of the Trees and exploring. They had hauled him along on a regular basis.

He wondered if the people in Valinor knew when elves in the March died. How would he ever tell his sister how Elenwë had died in front of him?

Ecthelion and Artanis sat down on either side, leaning to share body heat through their cloaks and jackets. Artanis wrapped cold fingers around his wrist in comfort and mindspoke, _“The center section of the March got the worst damage. The House of the Golden Flower is safe.”_

He sighed. Nothing would ever be okay again, but his charges were safe.

_“We’ll walk back with you.”_

He nodded. The company would be nice.


	2. Elenwe – “There were moments on the Ice that were incomparably beautiful.”

Elenwe’s knife spinning into the depths of the Sea haunted Laurefindil’s dreams. The flash of the blade through the cloud of blood and Elenwe’s voice saying, _“Please.”_

He awoke with a start, his Steward was shaking his shoulder. She whispered. “You were having a nightmare.” He nodded in thanks and sat up, still wrapped in furs and warm. At least furs and hides were something they never lacked. 

It was the middle of rest, the big tent on top of the sleds was filled with sleeping bodies: families, couples and simple friends curled up together for comfort between scattered hide partitions. The occasional sleeper lay alone, happier that way. 

He snagged his coat and hat before pulling on his boots. Sleeping would be impossible for a while and he might as well check on the other sleds. 

Outside all was well, the other sleds quiet. A guard waved from the top of one of the food sleds. (They had quickly learned that the white bears were happy to try and raid sleds.) 

Just beyond the circle of sleds and Feanorian lights he stopped and sat down on a lump of ice to watch the sky lights. 

This time they were dim, barely veiling the stars. No chance of hearing the Singers this time. 

Just as well, he didn’t want to wander off involuntarily like many of their victims seemed to have done. Through the silence he heard footsteps and turned to watch Ecthelion walk up; their camps were close tonight as they wound through another set of ice mountains. 

“Couldn’t sleep either?” 

Ecthelion shrugged. “It’s the sort of night that in Tirion I would have sat in the garden and played until the Light changed again.” He paused. “I even got out my flute… And put it away again.”

Laurefindil glanced at him, he was staring at the lights. 

“I hadn’t even thought about it, but it was the Doom. Have you noticed?” There was a hint of self-mocking laugher in his tone. 

“Noticed what?”

Ecthelion smiled and patted him on the shoulder. “Let me know when you do.” He sighed, “Sometimes I wonder if we didn’t all simply die that moment we crossed out of Araman and are now simply ghosts walking through this wasteland.” He stepped away. “I’m going to do another circuit of the camps, then maybe I can sleep.” 

Laurefindil sat out there until he got cold, then went back to bed to more peaceful dreams. 

The next walk, the hunters finally caught the “no, it’s not a seal”. A walrus, as it was quickly dubbed.

It turned out that walrus were quite edible. Just so large that it took several hunting groups to haul a kill back to the March. His House ate until they were stuffed with the first few they caught. Some of the food shortages eased as the new food was passed along and hunting in the south grew better. 

Watching the House of the Golden Flower feast, Laurefindil noticed something that he had not noticed before: there was no singing.

No walking songs as the March moved east.

No lullabies as everyone settled down to sleep.

No story songs, no musical instruments even though he knew they existed in the March.

He even tried singing one of the walking songs as he pulled. But, Ecthelion was right, music had vanished from the souls of the elves in the March the instant they left Valinor. 

Even his.

***

“Itarillë?”

Irrise looked grim. “I had hoped she had visited you, maybe come to play.” She glanced across the Ice, visibly counting the lights. “You or Artanis on this end.”

Laurefindil shook his head. A tiny thread of terror snuck through his soul. “Did you try Findekano?” 

Whereas Laurefindil’s House was even with Turukano, Artanis, and Nolofinwes’ groups, just on an outer edge, Findekano was farther back and currently almost directly behind Lord Nolofinwe’s train.

“I’m going to check in with my group, Arakano, and Findekano again. Turukano went to the back of the March to ask if they’d seen her.” Irrise’s frown deepened and Laurefindil could see the terror hiding in her eyes. “Maybe the little fool went and followed the lights.” 

He watched her strap her skies into place outside the big tent. She opened the grill on her little lamp and skied off back toward the distant light of the great lamp that signaled Nolofinwe’s position at the center head of the March. From their vantage point he could see the tiny lights of the Feanorian lamps off all the way back over the last ice range they had crossed. 

Looking the other way, there were no lamps marking the positions of sleds and tents. Just the emptiness of the Ice and the stars in multicolored fire. 

“I told Irrise I had seen her out, coming this way.” Artanis spoke from the dark. “But she didn’t stop with us and I lost her footprints in the rubble. I hoped she had simply walked here.” It was one of the reasons Laurefindil’s group was so far out right now: the tumbled piles of ice were impossible for sleds and it was easier to swing out a little than try and mine through miles of the stuff. 

Artanis was staring out at the lights, starting their slow dance of green and yellow in the sky. “I told Irrise she had walked out into destiny. And she shouted that Itarillë wouldn’t be so stupid and that I had probably mistaken the tracks. We trekked up and down and couldn’t find anything more than those few prints.”

“You think she went out?” And died. Elves who followed the sky lights and the Singers died chasing them. Worse yet, search and rescue teams tended to suffer the same fate.

“I think…” Artanis faltered for once, groping after words. “I think I spoke true, without thinking.” The gift of sight was a rogue one for most elves, even in those horrifically talented Vanyar who chose to serve Lady Vaire because of it, unable to cope with the constant flood of visions, dreams, and potential paths. 

She stepped closer, and Laurefindil instinctively opened his arms. She hugged him tightly, leaning in for comfort. He whispered, “You Saw something, you did not make it or cause it to be.” 

Artanis whispered, “I know.” 

When she didn’t respond he said, “I’ll go. I’m not as good a tracker as Irrise but I can follow the sky lights too.” If there was any chance to get his little cousin back, he would need to hurry. And he would at least last longer on his own out there than an elfling. He smiled, “Watch my House?”

She nodded, scowling, but did not protest. 

He went and put together a small pack and some heavier clothing. When he came back, Artanis still stood there. He smiled, “See you on the other side.”

She stared at him and smiled slightly. “Enjoy the lights.” She leaned forward and kissed his brow, tall enough that she barely tilted her chin. 

And he walked into the dark and light world of the Ice. 

After a while Laurefindil looked back to measure his progress and memorize the route home. The camp lights were getting smaller. Much farther, perhaps over the next little ice hillock, and they would be gone. And elves who left the lanterns by themselves did not always return. 

He sighed, listening to the moisture in his breath crackle. One last hill, just a little farther. He knew he wouldn’t stop there, but it was a good thought. A living, survival sort of thought. 

And there, just on the lee of the hill, were small footprints in the collected snow. Laurefindil knelt to examine the prints and smiled. Itarillë, with one good wool, fur and leather boot print. And one rather odd print: just the heel and a little of the arch. 

She was walking better with each rotation of the stars and change of season. But her footprints were still distinct in their uneven gait. 

Itarillë had been injured very early in their trek onto the Ice. In retrospect, Laurefindil couldn’t decide if it was a sign of things to come. Or just the terrible luck of inexperienced elves marching through the endless icy dark. 

The wind was high that day, and the weather relatively warm. 

They hadn’t yet learned the dangers of the Ice.

Laurefindil’s group had put their elflings up to play on the back of one of the sleds; he had had an uneasy feeling he couldn’t pinpoint. He walked up and down the line, counting heads and not allowing the hunters out. When the wave traveled through, and the ice broke and began to shove upward into spires they managed to keep the sleds upright. Every adult, in harness or not had grabbed a piece of sled and pulled them out of the danger zone at a run. 

At the front of the great columns, Laurefindil’s group had been lucky. That time. And since, everyone had gained experience.

That time, damage to the inexperienced groups had been much worse as you went back west. Lady Tenalta, leading one of the groups at the rear had lost almost a hundred elves of her household when an entire great block of ice had turned and slid the entire group screaming into the water. Most of the group had been saved through the heroism and leadership of the Lady. She had been pinned between the ice and a sled as she went into the water, but managed to pull herself out and form rescue parties. 

She had sent elves on skis for help and set up an emergency camp, only collapsing as the last of the survivors was dragged into the great tents. The healers had amputated her crushed feet and she had survived and continued to lead. 

At the same time, Turukano’s group had been hit by one of the avalanches. It had detached from one of the ice mountains they were skirting and crashed into the camp with explosive force. 

Itarillë and the other elflings hadn’t known to run as the Ice moaned and creaked. 

Itarillë had been swept up and crushed in the slide. It had broken ribs, shattered her legs and snapped vertebrae in multiple spots down her back. The battered solitary survivor of five elflings and the parents watching them. 

Elenwë and Turukano sat next to their daughter waiting to see if she would live or die, and then waiting to see if she could feel her toes. 

The entire March had halted through cycle after cycle of the stars spinning across the sky to recover and mourn. 

As they continued onward, Elenwë or Turukano had lain with her on the sleds. After all the bones healed, Turukano, Elenwë and various family members had taken it in turn to carry her strapped to their body as they walked. They had already learned you could not leave injured elves alone on the sleds, lest they freeze to death in their lack of motion. 

Very slowly she had learned to walk again, unsteady and staggering. 

This would be the farthest that Itarillë had walked since the accident. 

Without a thought for his House, the March or the fading glow of its lights, Laurefindil walked softly onward. The snow creaked slightly as he walked and the stars grew brighter, the great curtains of light were slowly undulating in bands across the sky. 

As the curtain grew brighter, Laurefindil could hear the singing again. Just barely audible over the wind in the cold dark. 

And this time he went directly toward it, following prints that disappeared as he walked. 

Laurefindil glanced over his shoulder, trying to orient the ice mountains on the other side of his camp. They were completely invisible. 

He occasionally yelled, “Itarillë! Itarillë, where are you?” but there was no response.

Laurefindil followed the footprints farther out into the wilderness, skirting an ice block like a small hut and then slithering down and up a small crevasse. The ragged prints continued toward the lights drifting between Varda’s stars. The stars moved through their patterns. 

The singing was getting slowly louder and he drifted a little as he trudged, listening to the lost tunes in the wind.

But he found Itarillë.

“Cousin Laure? Do you think I’ll ever be able to dance like mother could?” Itarillë sat on an ice lump on the edge of a large uneven field that reflected in shades of blue in the dark. 

Laurefindil sat down next to her, dropping his pack at his feet before pulling the elfling into his lap and squeezing her gently up against his chest. “You’ve walked a long way, Itarillë. Were you following the Singers?”

She nodded against his chest. “They were singing and dancing like Mother.” She shivered and he tried to pull her deeper into the shelter of his arms before reaching into the pack for food. This far away from any of the groups, there was a good chance they were lost and doomed. Still, a minor rest and a meal would do Itarillë good before they tried walking back.

He rubbed a hand down her back as she began to sob. “Cousin Laure? Am I going to forget Mother?” She pulled away to look into his eyes. “I tried and I don’t remember Tirion, not even when Father tells stories. I don’t remember the gardens of the Palace. I only remember the Trees a little.”

“And you think your mother will be next?” Itarillë nodded, her tears were frozen on her cheeks and reflected the green and yellow glory unfolding overhead. 

“I do not think you will.” Laurefindil looked up at the sky, turning Itarillë around so she could watch from the shelter of his lap. Streaks of red followed the green in bands. “She is much more important, you know.”

Itarillë looked back at him skeptically but pointed, “Can you see the Singers?” Out in the far distance a group of figures glowed with all the colors of the lights in the sky. He watched, fascinated. No one had ever described them except as a distant shadow and rumor. They circled, looping in a complicated pattern, bending and kicking as the song swelled. The sky lights danced in time.

Laurefindil felt the longing to go dance with them and Itarillë shifted in his lap. 

“Yes, I can see them.” He tightened his grip on the elfling and tried to focus on his boots, Itarillë’s hair, the sky lights. Anything except the Singers. The elves who had gone missing had simply walked away from the camps, heedlessly out into the Grinding Ice as they followed the song. Some they had found again, dead. Frozen, eaten by one of the bears, crushed or broken when they miss-stepped or an avalanche got them… 

He kissed the top of his little cousin’s head. “In answer to your earlier question, yes.”

“Yes?” Eyes focused on the lights and the dancers, Itarillë had forgotten. 

“You will be able to dance just as well as your mother. It’ll just take practice. If you want, would you like me to teach you?” Any promise to get her to go back with him without a struggle. “I know all the dances your mother would have learned growing up.”

Itarillë finally turned to him. “The healers say I might not ever walk properly again.” There was a flat tone of pain in her voice.

He forced himself to smile. “And what do you think?”

She cocked her head, staring at him. 

“What do you think?” He took her hands in his. “Will you dance?”

Her eyes narrowed. “I’ll dance as well as Mother. And I’ll fight with a long sword like her. And I’ll make wire jewelry like her and paint.”

“Then I think you will, too. And I’ll help.” He set her on her feet on the chunk of ice. “Shall we go back to the camps? Your father and grandfather are worried.” 

Eye to eye, she nodded. “I will practice walking a little before you have to carry me.”

Hand in hand they turned their backs on the lights and dancers and walking back toward the camps. Laurefindil hummed the song to Lady Varda his mother had taught him, wondering how his family was faring in Valinor. 

Itarillë said, “Will you teach me that one too?”

He smiled and started over again, loud and clear for the first time since Araman and the Doom. A song and lullaby to Lady Varda, speaking of the stars pacing through the dark of the heavens in an eternal dance. A dance and sentinel’s watch against all that the dark might hold and the Void beyond. 

On the third repetition, Itarillë joined in, tentative at first but gaining confidence as she carefully stepped onward in rhythm with the song. 

It was getting colder.

The wind had come up again, clouds and light snow had moved in. And even without the sky lights Laurefindil swore he could hear the Singers behind him. He knew he had gone in a few circles, but had hoped he had gotten straightened out again. He was desperately afraid he was walking farther from the March. 

It had been at least three or four rotations of the stars and the food was gone. 

It would be over soon, he thought. Itarillë had walked only a little way before she was exhausted. He had mostly carried her ever since. She was asleep right now, he could feel her soft breaths on the back of his neck. Hopefully she would just sleep as they both froze. 

He had tried so hard. Laurefindil grunted as he kicked a chunk of ice and almost tipped over. 

He wouldn’t stop. 

If he was still moving there was still a chance that he would find the March again. 

He continued to sing to Lady Varda under his breath as he walked. Singing seemed to keep the pull of the Singers at bay. 

The wind died a little and he heard it: a flute, clear and thin above the wind. It trilled and the tone swooped higher into a dance tune Laurefindil remembered hearing in Tirion. He staggered toward it. 

It got louder and he wondered if he was finally hallucinating. He tried to speed up.

Just there, around one of the hillocks of ice that littered the area, Ecthelion stood with a Feanorian light and a small hunting sled. Bundled up and playing his flute for all he was worth. He grinned and rubbed at his eyes. “Ah the stupid Vanya lord and the runaway! How do you get two flutes in tune with each other?”

Laurefindil stared blankly. 

“Alas, it is a task even the Valar would refuse. You must dispatch one player.” Ecthelion howled with laughter at his own joke before wiping at his face again and pulling a basket from the sled. “I have food and water for both of you and I know the way back from here.” Ecthelion took a deep breath, steadying himself before he continued. “We mourned you as lost forever, following the Singers. The hunters and pathfinders had seen no signs. But Lady Artanis said you weren’t gone yet.” 

Ecthelion gave the smile of an elf granted a miracle. “And I thought: a flute can be heard for miles, even in the wind.”

As they walked slowly back, Ecthelion laughed with Itarillë, teaching her a children’s song about a goose going shopping on market day. It felt right, the silly little song echoing off the Ice despite the wind.

Maybe music was coming back to the lost souls of the March. 


End file.
